UNIVAC Line Computers

UNIVAC, short for Universal Automatic Computer, was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers that began with the products of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and continued under Remington Rand, Sperry Rand and later Unisys. The original UNIVAC I, delivered in 1951, became widely known for its live 1952 presidential election prediction broadcast on CBS television, and its trademark was extended across a growing family of successor machines built by the same corporate lineage. The UNIVAC II followed as a faster, magnetic core memory upgrade compatible with the original line, while the UNIVAC 1103 and its successor the UNIVAC 1105 extended the family into larger scale scientific and business computing through the 1950s. Together these machines trace one continuous corporate product lineage, sold under the same UNIVAC name across four decades of ownership changes, from among the earliest general purpose electronic computers sold in the United States through the later 1100 series mainframes.